Living Together Before Marriage

Letter #2

Dear Dr. Harley,

I've often heard that living together before marriage is perilous and that statistics
bear that out. My friend is planning to move in with his girlfriend. I told him what I've
heard but have not actually seen these statistics. He questioned my stats, imagine that!
If it's not too much trouble I would appreciate any hard info on these stats and their
sources.

Thanks in advance.

W.K.

Dear W.K.,

My own numbers (85% failure rate among those who live together before marriage),
comes from my own research and extrapolations of studies I've read in the past. Since I
have not published any of these, nor do I intend to publish them, I'll direct you to some
recent studies done by others.

One study that you may find interesting was done by Bennett, Blan, and Bloom
(American Sociological Review, 1988, Vol 53: 127-138) entitled, "Commitment and the Modern
Union: Assessing the Link Between Premarital Cohabitation and Subsequent Marital
Stability."

The point made by the authors is
that, overall, the risk of divorce after living together is 80% higher than the risk of divorce
after not living together, which is already too high. In other words, those who live
together before marriage are almost twice as likely to divorce than those who did not live
together. But they also point out that the risk of divorce is even higher if you don't live
together more than three years prior to marriage. The longer you live together prior to
marriage, the less the risk of divorce until after 8 years of living together, when the risk of
divorce is equal to those who have not lived together.

Another interesting study was conducted by Hall and Zhao (Cohabitation and
Divorce in Canada, Journal of Marriage and the Family, May 1995: 421-427). They write,

The popular belief that cohabitation is an effective strategy in a high-divorce society rests on
the common-sense notion that getting to know one another before marrying should improve the
quality and stability of marriage. However, in this instance, it is looking more and more as if
common sense is a poor guide.

Their study showed that cohabitation itself was shown to account for a higher
divorce rate, rather than factors that might have led to cohabitation, such as parental
divorce, age at marriage, stepchildren, religion, and other factors. In other words, other
factors being equal, you are much more likely to divorce if you live together first.

DeMaris and MacDonald (Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Instability: A Test
of the unconventionality Hypothesis, Journal of Marriage and the Family, May 1993: 399-407),
echo Hall and Zhao. They found that the unconventionality of those who live together
does not explain their subsequent struggle when married. There is something about living
together first that creates marital problems later. They write:

Despite a widespread public faith in premarital cohabitation as a testing ground for marital
incompatibility, research to date indicates that cohabitors' marriages are less satisfactory and more
unstable than those of noncohabitors.

Undoubtedly there are some self-selection factors that make people who live
together more prone to marital problems later. But the gist of current research is that these
factors are not enough to explain the astonishingly huge effect. Simply stated, if you live
together before marriage, you will be fighting an uphill battle to save your marriage.

If you like to spend your evenings hidden among the periodicals of your local
library, here are some other studies that show how risky it is to live together before
marriage: